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Last week was very fun! We all Tuned into da Izreal Vibes. build a Mongolian Yurt and the amazing weekend in Vilnius.

Buts its Monday again! Work haz to be done. To bad the weather was not with us. A heavy northern wind hit us. Northern winds are Strong and cold. So basically Monday we stayed inside all day. and chilled a bit. (this was great for me) because I managed to get my blog up to date. As far as I remember I spend most of Monday hitting the keyboardz and adding pages to my book! Tuesday was the same, the weather was not with us. Rain hit us. Not much work was done this day. I cant recall any specific things we did except for. not much.

Then Wednesday arrived. its the 7th of May. Now things started to get extra fun!

The house still haz allot of walls that needs to get finished. Basically they are filled with isolation (straw/clay mix) but still need a vew layers of Erthn Plaster to finish them.
Basz started to teach me the tricks of the trade: Mixing Erthn Plaster.

First I had to learn the mixture he uses to smear on the walls. Its like mixing cement, but now we don’t use ready to go Bagz of cement and water.
We use a mix of Clay, Sand, Straw n water.
You should think of 1/3 where 1 shovel of Clay, needs 3 Shovels of Sand. Add enough straw n water, then mix it. To check if the mixture is good you make a ball of it, if it sticks to your hand if you keep it Open-ish. It’s fine. If it drops. It’s not. When you do the first layer which you have to push deep into the Isolation. Its sometimes better to add a bit more water for EZ Smearyness. Its not that hard actually, Honestly I think this Erthn Plaster works Way WAy WAY better then cement. Don’t forget! the surface you are gonna Smear needs to be Wet, if its not, it will not stick. So we spray it with water before we start duuh

After Basz explained me the mixture, He just let me do my thang. I have little experience with plastering. but due to the EZness of this shit. I got the hang of it pretty fast.

The first layers you push deep into the clay, on top will come another layer of clay which you can smooth out. On top of that will come the Lime plaster thingy but we didn’t get to that part yet. for now its just Clay.

Of course when you finished your first clay wall and its still FRESH the cat comes to take a look. Thnx James, your paw prints were very artzies. I’m not sure if Basz removed them or if they are still actually present in the wall. tbh i hope so :D i didn’t do anything about them gheghe

But there R moar people that can Clay. So when he told me the tricks of the trade, he didn’t feel like telling the rest of the Ego village residence. Basically I had to explain them what I just learned. this was eazyr then expected. After the introduction we started filling up walls like Madmanz

To give you an example of the different layers.
isolation, Erthn Plaster pushed in it. Erthn Plaster to add thickness and smoothness. then Limeshizzle for finish

No the bottles are not trash, they will eventually be used to make psychedelic windows you digg ? You might also be thinking. Where do you get all this clay from? Well we dig it up of course. But its not like you get a shovel and dig up some clay. it haz rules and thing to consider. I’m thinking about making a Resources page. but for now ill just explain you how we dig up the clay we use to smear on the walls.

When you dig up the clay you have to make sure you don’t get to much sand or vegetation in your clay. The first step for claydigging is to remove the top layer of da Erth, the layer that haz the grass, plants and roots in it. Once you removed the organic top layer of da Erth, you have to keep going until you hit the right clay. Some clay is very sandy. This is not the right clay, you need to have the right type of clay with lots o moist n awesomeness.

Once you removed the top layer and found the right clay and removed most of the dirt, you can start choppin of peaces of the clay. Which we then shovel into a wheelbarrow, we fill the wheelbarrow full of clay with water so the clay gets more moist. Then we can use it in the mix.

So Wednesday we were working on the walls, we did this also on Thursday. It was still rather rainy, luckily we were able to work on the inside walls of the house. Friday the weather got better. Lots better. We had rainz at night but Sun at day and not much wind, sometimes a lil drop here n there, but then we would just chill a bit until the Heavy rain stopped. Peter n Bart were working on the outside walls. Chris n Karin in the garden. what Basz was doing is not important really.

Me though. I had a new task. I Started on a Workbench in the shed. basically all the tools are all over the place. This workbench will make it easy to store tools, also when the workbench is done. I can probably start to “actually make some furniture” because this haven’t been the case yet until (Saturday)

To give you an idea of how the workbench is doing, it looks like this at the moment.

Not much to say here. you will see more of it sooner or later!

Saturday while I was working on the workbench, Chris came to me with a question.
she wanted a lil Kitchen thingy for in the Yurt so she could do the dishes in the Yurt instead of walking all the way to the house. Chris told me her idea and we started fabricating some kitchenthingy. it was rather fun, and things went pretty fast.

I still have to get used to the way things work here. I’m used to stationary machines Unobro. Everything as perfect as possible. Here things are crazy, nothing is perfect and I have minimum tools to do what I have to do. luckily everything went fine. Although I felt like a Retard finishing this Kitchen thingy. Chris was very happy with it and enjoyed it very much that night doing her first dishes inside the yurt.

So this week in a nutshell. Monday n Tuesday was hardcore chillin. Wednesday and Thursday we learned how to mix Erthn Plaster n how to Smear on the walls, I learned how to gather clay from the ground around the property. Friday I started on the workbench and Saturday I was working on the workbench n kitchenthingy.

It was a nice week again!, cant wait to see whats be happening next week. Also the 17th is some crazy Street music Day in Vilnius which I’m gonna check out fo sho! Imagine Live Music everywhere in the streetsz to check out for free.

After getting to know each other a bit more and tuning in to the IzReal Vibeez. Monday arrived, Its 28th of da aprilz!. We made so much plans yesterday, and lots of ideas what will happen this week. But things here are not plan-able, because Monday morning everything was different then expected. So we just started with doing the things we had to do. I can go into detail, for example going to Moletai buy some random shit. but i will try my best to skip the boring shizznit.

A Yurt had to be build! Awww Yeaahh!!
Imagine we are sleeping in the house with 5 ppl now, The Yurt will be for for the Almerian couple, they will stay here till august or something like that.

As you might have noticed, the ground is not exactly flat here in Lietuva. First we set the priority to building a platform for the Yurt. This is where i come in handy, for those who don’t know. One of my Alter Egoz is Cabinet maker//Woodworker.

We took some wooden beams, Basz walked in front, at some random place we started leveling the Beams using logs, We had to make a platform with a width of 6x6meters.
this was also the diameter of the yurt +/-.

Meanwhile Basz was leveling the Beams, me n Bart were busy finding wooden planks for the first layer, because the first layer was for strength, we didn’t have to saw much planks yet. The top layer had to be perfect so no ankles can be broken when walking over it.

After finishing the first layer, we worked enough for the day, we got distracted on doing allot of other things like. laughing, getting to know each other a bit more, thinking what we will have for dinner. and of course some tea.

The next day we “planned” to finish the top layer so we could start on the Yurt soon.
We were busy all day finding nice wooden boards that fit. Here n there, Me n sometimes Bart had to saw off some node’s n curves to make the boards fit. They did not have to fit perfectly, but the gap should at least be small enough so no ankles can be broken stepping on it wrongly.

As usual. the “planning” of the day was not realistic. We didn’t finish it on day 2. We did allot of other fun things to keep us busy.

Day 3 though (Wednesday). We finally finished the Platform. Things went allot faster now we got the hang of it, I sawed the planks, Bart was nailing the planks, Peter was helping me out whenever needed n Chris/Peter were moving the planks. Eventually it looked something like this.

What Basz was doing? I’m not sure what he was doing. Probably walking on water somewhere, maybe practicing his Telekinesis, who knows!

Because we finished the platform early afternoon we started on the Yurt right away,
Something you should know: Non of us ever build a Yurt, it was a rather exciting moment. We you-tubed a Yurt building tutorial, for the Almerian couple it was a lil stressful sometimes, Luckily I did not have to sleep in the Yurt. So i was able to keep my Zen.
(don’t worrie everything was fine again at the end of the day)
But you can imagine, sometimes the Mind takes over and starts to worrie about the things you should simply not worrie about. I would say this was the case for Chris, she had a different point of view. luckily we can respect each other here for who we are. so after sharing our different point of view things are Back to Basic again.

Its Wednesday evening. We managed to finish the Frame of the Yurt,

The weather was very nice the first week, not much wind, no rain at all. Just sun and warmth. It was very nice working in these weather conditions. I certainly got some Tan!

The next day a new person would arrive, Karin: Shes an older woman into Permaculture and plants, stuff like that. Peter n Chris went to pick her up from the Airport,

Me, Basz n Bart started preparing to dress up the yurt.
When Peter n Chris arrived with Karin we started putting the wool/Canvas over the Frame. This also was a bit of a puzzle but eventually it all worked out.
Karin had to find her way a lil so she didn’t help that much. which was not a problem.

The inside of the yurt was still rather empty. Due to not being able to find the right size tubes for the heater, we spend the Friday doing other things. Basz prepared the heater, he just wasn’t able to finish it. To explain a bit what he did, he took an old oil canister, cut a square in it. Because it still had oil remnant in it and the paint on the outside had to get of so it wouldn’t poison the air when they fire up the heater it in the Yurt. He put fire in it. Big Fire! Lots of Smoke, Very eco indeed! he kept burning it until the paint on the outside melted off and the oil remnants were gone.

Saturday afternoon The Almerians went to the “Ikea” Herp Derp. They had to find some shelves and things to pimp up the inside of the Yurt’s interior. I joined them so they could drop me off in Vilnius, That night I was invited By Ruta n Kamile to the African Drumz Gig. Of course I couldn’t resist to check it out!

Basz build the Heater that day, below some pictures to give you a lil idea how the inside of the Yurt got Shape after i returned Sunday afternoon.

It was a nice week, I enjoyed it very much. Learned allot, The weather was amazing! But apparently we got lucky. After the weekend a steady Northern wind hit us. Daanggg son Northern windsz are cold n strong!!. Bye T-shirt, Welcome triple layers wool sweaters ghegheghe.

Thinking inside the box is not an option here, you haz to learn to be outside of the box.
Really starting to feel the shit the system tried to keep me attached to is slowly fading.
can’t imagine at the moment what will happen to me when I will stay here for a longer period of time, only 1 week haz passed, feels like I lived here my entire life.

Sunday 27th of April i arrived at IzReal, I’m sure ya all be curious whats ballin here.
so i will give you a little tour de IzReal so you can all get a little idea of how life goez around here.

This is the Crib, It originally was a little wooden house. Since 2012 Basz and his workers added more living space to it, Basically they added more living space on the left (the 2 windows) and they added a Second floor. The extension at the entrance will eventually become the “scullery” You should imagine that they build the house by them self, they bought good quality wood for the Frame of the house, for Isolation he uses a mixture of Straw and clay. The clay he digs up somewhere on his property and the straw he gets from the farmers around. To finish the wallz he adds a vew layers of clay n then Lime with water as a finish, to add some Fiber he uses those Cigar-ish plants that grow next to creeks (which he haz on the back of his property)

Using this system of layering, you might be thinking. How is this possible? no bricks? no cement? no glass-wool/plaster from the gamma? Well. Nature is Awesome, and using natural resources the right way will make things much more easyr. And most of all. its for free. At day the house keeps cool, at night the house keeps warm. (but of course when it gets to cold we have to fire it up a bit)

If we walk out a bit to the west we can find the farm. his way of farming is EZ
He made rectangular containers (called Raised bedz), Because the ground is Clay-ish, inside the containers he loosened up the ground n Covers it with straw. Why you might think?
its simple. the straw protects the ground. At night when it gets cold the straw is like isolation. At day when the sun is shining, the moisture doesn’t evaporate straight away so basically you keep the ground temperature and moisture content in balance.
He doesn’t use chemicals or anything. Indeed sometimes snails or insects eat a crop, but so what? its not like they destroy all the farm and eat everything. there is still enough left for us humanz to live from. n there are lil tricks like planting onions or citronella to keep certain insects away.

If its nice weather we cook outside on the Rocket stove
(its actually a hybrid. Between the 2 rocket stoves is a lil BBQ)
If you wanna take a shower we use the Rocket Stove or the stove in the house to warm up like 10 to 15 liters of water, we put this in a jerrycan with a lil valve, put it on top of the shower cabin. Then you haz awesome shower

Gotta take a poop lulz?
Go for the compost toilet, but don’t think you can flush your shit. Just throw some Sawdust over it. This way it dries fast so it wont smell, gotta take a pee? no problem. Just find a spot u like. Usually its in the bushes behind the toilet.

Lets continue and check the property a bit more, If you like you can take this road-ish but this is not an obligation. The property reaches far into the horizon. Its a total of 5 hectare.

Getting close to the little Forrest (the above picture on the left) you will have a view like this, his property ends at the creek which you can’t really see at the picture below. But you can obviously see the light green treeline in the back. basically its somewhere in front of that treeline.

Also there is this fireplace we use in the winter to keep warm and chillax. Watching the stars here is amazing. Basically cuz you don’t have light pollution like in the bigga cities. At nights Black. Pitch black. Maybe you see the light in a window from the neighbor a vew km away. but no streetlights. no greenhouse lights, just darkness and stars.
Depending on the time n da month Moonlight.

So lets turn around and walk back to the house again.

We just passed the road on the left side of the yurt. now we will walk back on the right side of the yurt. Here we can find a vew sheds, used to store straw, water bottles n random stuff. also some wood but this lies oustide.

Maybe you have been thinking, where do you get your water? obviously he doesn’t have tap water, basically he has a Well, we pump up the water from the source in the ground. This is all natural and healthy to drink. No Fluoride in this water Whooohooo!

So this is basically the property and the things we use daily.
But of course you would like an impression of where we life right?
the house looks big on the first picture. It for sure is. But its not finished yet, so we only use a small portion of the house (the original one)

Below some pictures of how it looks inside.
When you enter you see the Stove/heating system and the kitchen.
The door behind me leads to the living area.
In the final picture the kitchen again with the entrance to the left of the cabinet, the light brown door is a small room to sleep in (I sleep in the living room below the red curtain)

I can imagine you be thinking.
2 computers? dafuq?
Indeed. If you have been reading: I told in To IzReal. Its not so much of an Eco village as i expected. Its much more modern as I thought, He is connected to the Net. but luckily its super cheap here. Also for internet he planted a satellite on the roof of his neighbors, the internet cable just runs outside through the garden into his house. (the neighbors may also use his internet for free) luckily Basz his way of thinking, and doing his thangs get close to Ecological principles. at least way better then for example BAM/Mons@nto principles gheghe.

I was considering becoming A Vegetarian when i left home. Once i arrived here I noticed this is not really practical. Although the work pase is very chillax here, the work you do is Heavy most of the time and physical n dirty. But most of all, Fun! And things to do with yo hands. Meat is important because it haz allot of protein we need. Without it, you just feel yo body draining of energy. So that’s why most here are not Vegetarian. No worriez though. We don’t eat meat everyday. Its in balance. Also the meat here is WAY better then in the west because it isn’t produced on a mass production scale and Pumped full of water. Even the meat in the supermarkets here is from local farmers. its Real meat. Good healthy Meat. from free walking an grazing animals. living a “better” life.
some of the fish are also fresh! though animal lover will probably still think this is madness! check it out!

Below some pictures of dinnerz we had.
What i would like to ad. If we use the Stove for cooking, the tube system runs through the walls and around the house. heating it up. so you get 2 in 1. after cooking, if we need more warmth we add some woodzies

Wall Warming whoohoo!
and soon even Floor warming with the same principle just on a bigger scale!!
Check Rockets mass heater @ IzReal.eu for details.

I love this place.
I hope you can imagine why.

Life is easy going here, no stress, no hurriez, no paperwork (maybe just a very little now n then), everything is fun, amazing and you learn new things everyday. No day is the same.

The day hasz come. It was time for me to head to my new home, its Sunday da 27th of Aprilz. My final destination for now is located somewhere in the Green circle.

It got pretty late last night. So much phunzies we had! Also it was the first time in a longer while that I had more Beers than usual, As my closer friend will know. I didnt drink much/almost nothing since the Vodka incident in Dec 2012. Last night changed everything. So much delicious beer NomNom. Its not that I felt it the next morning, but due to the travels and all the energy used on meeting new ppl n going to bed later then I was used to, I was very tired. Luckly this hostel I found had Free breakfast, Pancakes!! freshly baked around 08 o clocks by the lady behind the desk. I wanted to stay in Vilnius a bit longer, but due to no Couch and not a fan of hostels I figured I should just head to Izreal. I can come back anytime Right! its not that I will leave Lietuva anytime soon. I was not in the mood hitchhiking to Moletai thow, the central train/bus station was basically next to my hostel. I checked the bus. just 6 euroez. Fuck yeah!

I had to wait like 30 minutes for the bus, I decided to check a market nearby, got myself some apples n bananas. I love those fruitzies!. Also, the most amazing thing ever.
1Kg lemons For only 3 litas. Can you fkn imagine? 1KG LEMONS For only 0.90 Euroez. (aka 90 cent) Lietuva is like Dolan Heaven!

The bus ride was Comfy. It took about 90 minutes, not much of an highway here. It didn’t drove that fast either due to the hills and curves and crazyness. But I didn’t mind. I slept for a while, in between I once again was amazed by the landscape of Lietuva. (Since I arrived here last week, I think I didnt got the best pictures in the bus. But for now good enough to give you an impression) sooner or later i will go scout the area and show you the most amazing spots.

I think i arrived at Moletai around 15:00, gave basz an sms. He was so kind enough to pick me up from the central bus station. Its about a 15 minute drive to the home of basz. At first it was asphalt road. But soon enough we went off road and drove roads like this (see below). Very awesome. For all of you who play DayZ, here in Lietuva the crazy sand clouds behind the car are forreal! I felt like I was in DayZ real time. Driving so fast over dirt roads avoiding rocks. lovely landscaping. Animal all over the place, random farms here n there. A Completely different world again, no more big cities, cars n peepz. I was rather enjoyed! and it was the first time i met Basz in real life,

A vew dayZ before I arrived 3 other peepz joined Basz at Izreal. To give the story in a nutshell. Basz started it all with 6 peepz in 2012. 5 of them bailed, shit happened. they couldn’t handle the physical work, all kinds of crazy shit. So eventually he ended up there alone. doing his thing.

Now peepz like me join him, stick around for a while. Then leave again, maybe come back next year. At the moment Basz is the only dude living here Eryday.

So the 3 other peepz are also from Almere. Kamp Nederland Represent! HUW HUW! My whole view of the Eco village got turned upside down. First of all, Its not an Eco village. Its nothing like i expected it to be. Nevertheless. I instantly felt at home. No worriez. Be happyz. The amount of humor used on a daily basis is Over 9000! Its just not an option to take thingz to Serious. Even when it does for about 1 minute. it gets owned by humor afterwards. if not, definitely a good proportion of sarcasm gets thrown in your face.

We Chilled for a bit. got to know each other, got a Tour de Izreal. lil tutorial on the compost toilet, water well. stuff like that. You can find Tour de Izreal Here!

That night watching the Sun set. I knew, I arrived at the place i belong. At-least for now.
I let my Spirit guide me, when he tells me its time to go into the abyss again. its time.